Everyone needs a polar bear

A highlight from this summer's arctic voyage...


Arctic shorts - polar bear rolling from Bill Ritchie on Vimeo.

Speaking about this land

I got hooked on Gaelic when Roddy Maclean came to Lochinver to talk about the language. He said, 'you know how Inuit are supposed to have 50 words for snow? Well, given that Gaelic is the language of the Highlands, I wondered how many words could I think of for a bit of high land.' He put up a powerpoint slide crammed full of words, and said, 'I got to 72 and couldn't fit any more on the slide...' 

I realised that Gaelic has evolved to speak with real precision about the landscape. The language is customised for this loch-and-cnocan place. And it's not just about reading maps, though that is greatly assisted by a working knowledge of Gaelic.

I love reading Gaelic poetry and I have tired of only being able to read the right hand side of the page. As I've grasped some basic grammar and learned how sentences are constructed, I've become increasingly aware of how often a word like 'moor' is used repeatedly in the English translation, yet several different words are used in the Gaelic original. There are nuances about the shapes and textures of this land that can only be expressed in the native tongue.

I can't speak it yet, but I'm working on it. This week, a group of five of us in Assynt reached a landmark, completing the 144 units of the Ulpan course. I've just spent the weekend at Glencanisp Lodge, for some intensive but very enjoyable Gaelic learning, and singing, and joking, and an indecent amount of chocolate. My favourite session was one on similes: how about 'Cho caol ri taghan' - thin as a pine marten? 'Cho trang ri triur ann an leabaidh' - as busy as three in a bed! And that specificity is there again: in English we'd say 'as old as the hills', but in Gaelic it's 'Cho sean ri ceò nam beann' - as old as the mist on the mountain. What an evocative image!

The other thing I remember from Roddy Maclean's talk, back then, was him telling us that the oyster catcher says 'bi glic, bi glic, bi glic, bi glic'. It's a perfect rendering of their sound, and it means 'be wise'. 'If you learn to speak Gaelic,' Roddy said with a twinkle in his eye, 'you discover that all of the birds are giving us good advice.'

Nature in Assynt - a plan and a vision

There were two interesting public meetings in Assynt this week. The first was a scoping meeting for Assynt Foundation's new forest plan. At last things are moving forward to enhance and expand the woods on our 44,000-acre community-owned estate.

The expansion will probably not be by very much, as there is so little land that is suitable for planting, plus unfortunately there is a strong lobby to protect the red deer, which will greatly reduce the amount of land that can be set aside behind fences for natural regeneration. Personally, I'd like to see a large zero-tolerance zone for deer and see what natural regeneration would result, but it's not up to me. The good news is that there will be ongoing effort, with resources and backing by the Forestry Commission, to enhance our existing woods by planting some of the missing species and to encourage expansion by natural regeneration, with fences and some planting. Around Glencanisp Lodge the horrible wind-blown mess is being cleared and will be replanted, with plans to grow a bigger area of lovely woodland there. The forests will at least go in the right direction (i.e. grow up and out) over the next twenty years, so that is encouraging. If you want to see the draft plan and comment, contact Adam Pellant at Assynt Foundation.

The Foundation is hosting a woodland weekend, at which there will no doubt be much discussion of the future potential for the woods in Assynt and elsewhere in the Highlands. It will be the last weekend of November ( 29 Nov-1 Dec). I'll be contributing some tree poetry, naturally, but there'll be all sorts of other stuff too - from practical wood skills to walks and talks.

The other public meeting was a slide and video show by 2020 Vision. The village hall was pretty full, and we were shown loads of lovely images, but I was left wondering (and in conversations I know many others were too) what the point of the evening was - there was no discussion and no obvious outcome or next steps. The project aims 'to engage and enthuse a massive audience by using innovative visual media to convey the value of restoring our most important but often fragmented natural habitats - to show that healthy ecosystems are not just for wildlife, but are something fundamental to us all.' I can't help thinking if Lochinver was representative, that they are merely entertaining those who already care, many of whom are already busily engaged in things like woodland restoration. It looks like a big budget project, but it seems to be missing an opportunity to inspire new, different or collective action for nature.

My gut instinct is that I want to love the 2020 Vision project, and I've been subscribing to their emails and looking forward to seeing their results, so I was sorry to come away disappointed by their show. I'd be interested to know if anyone out there has a more positive take on the project.

Into the Forest

I've been gathering tree poems for years, and my dream of creating a tree poetry anthology is finally reaching fruition. Into the Forest will be published by Saraband in November (just in time for Christmas!) and it is going to be a thing of beauty. The cover and internal images are gorgeous, the design of the book is lovely, and of course the poems themselves are a forest of wonder.

There are more than 150 poets featured, ranging from nobel laureates like Seamus Heaney and Gabriella Mistral, to people you will never have heard of because they haven't been in print before. The anthology is structured into chapters following the species of the Gaelic tree alphabet but the selection of poems is ecologically liberal, including many close relatives of our native species living all over the world - from California to China, Norway to Norfolk.

I won't begin to try to explain how much more work is involved in the editing of such a collection than I expected. I'm just pleased that it has come together and been so creatively produced by Saraband.

The book is in aid of Trees for Life, and I'm giving my royalties to them to support regeneration of native woodlands in Scotland.

Into the Forest is dedicated to Gavin Wallace, whose tragic death earlier this year saddened everyone who knew him. I guess there must be hundreds of others just as grateful as I was for the  recognition he gave to our efforts and for the practical help he gave with Arts Council grants to individuals and to organisations. He was so modest about it all - a delightful man. I met him in the flesh first at the Ullapool Book Festival, after I'd received a Scottish Arts Council writer's bursary, and when I thanked him he gave a little smile and said something brief and nice and then turned the subject to the blossoms dressing the trees all the way up Market Street in the way they always do in Ullapool in May. I am sure he would have loved this book.

A watery poem for National Poetry Day

Today's National Poetry Day so to celebrate that, here's a poem on the theme of the day, water. It's from my collection Castings, now out of print. I found this traditional Cree story and loved it so much I wanted to see if it worked in the environment I am familiar with. In the Cree version I found, it is told by a man who is watching, with a wishing bone, hidden in some bushes. I've translocated it to the Highlands and retold it from the woman's point of view.

Wishing Bone Poem

(from a Cree story told by Jacob Nibeneganesabe)

This is my story.

I am married to this peaty pool.

He washes me

quenches my thirst

is fond of amphibians and ferns

sparkles in breezes.

I show him my love

swimming in him

gently.

Earlier this summer

the arsonist sun

scorched him away.

I lay in the dry hollow

waiting for rain.

Storms came

but their waters drained away.

I wept in the dry hollow.

Salt tears crusted my face.

I went looking for my husband-pool

trawled the glens and mires

calling.

I found him in a dark rocky hole.

He bathed my eyes clear.

Ever since I have been bringing him home

little by little

cupped in my hands.

Rock Writing at Knockan Crag

On Saturday 5th October, as part of the Assynt Festival, and the Year of Natural Scotland 2013, I'll be doing a rock writing event. A what? An exploration of rocks and how they've shaped our landscape, from a literary point of view - part writing workshop and part performance.

The plan for the day is to start with a 'Rock Book'. This will be a collection of some of the wonderful words about our landscape that have already been laid down, for example in Norman MacCaig's poetry, by geologists, and by local writers, as the raw material to inspire new rock writing.

From 1pm, we will use the Rock Book as inspiration, to be crushed and reformed, eroded and replaced by newly sedimented words, with intrusions of other existing writing brought along by participants squeezed among the strata, exploring all the geological metaphors we can in the time!

The result will be a metamorphosed set of rock writing strata, which will be performed on Knockan Crag at 3.30pm.

In between there'll be light refreshments, and there'll be a marquee in case the weather is typical for an Assynt October day, but you'd be best bringing clothing suitable for outdoors.

Come! It's going to be a unique Geopoetic event!


Saturday 5 October, Knockan Crag

1300: Poetry & Story Writing Workshop – using words about our landscape as raw materials to inspire new rock writing.

1500: Light Refreshments

1530–1630: Reading the new rock writing and perhaps some old ones too!

Everyone welcome to come along and take part by writing, reading or just listening.

More information on www.assyntfestival.org.uk

Rowan for Scotland's National Tree

Until 3 December 2013, the Forestry Commission is running a consultation about whether Scotland should have a national tree, and if so, what it should be. I was very flattered to be asked to be the 'champion' of the rowan tree when the consultation was launched at the Edinburgh Botanical Gardens earlier this month. Someone there must have noticed how much I love this beautiful species!

There are many myths and stories involving rowan trees. My favourite is a Greek myth. It tells of the top god Zeus, who discovered that his sacred nectar cup had been stolen by demons and sent eagles in pursuit. Although they rescued the magic cup, they were fatally injured in the process. As they fell to earth, Zeus turned their feathers into the pinnate leaves of rowan trees, their bones into wood and their blood into bright red berries. (These berries make a ruby-red jelly that rivals marmalade on toast for breakfast - the recipe is in the Handbook of Scottish Wild Harvests - and now is jelly time!)

In the Celtic tradition, rowan is the symbol of Brigid, goddess of poetry, music and the arts. It therefore seems fitting to offer a wee poem for this bonniest of Scotland's trees.

Rowan

The rowan grows tall
passed over by all
storms
it forms
here in the open wilds
the perfection of a child's
painting of a tree
untested by tragedy.

In the anthology of tree poems I'm editing (Into the Forest, due out in November from Saraband) there are lots of gorgeous poems about rowans, including Hopkins' cracker Inversnaid, with its reference to the 'beadbonny ash', one of the tree's nicknames. Its leaves are ash-like, so it is often called the mountain ash, and the Vikings believed men were made from ash trees, and woman from rowans.

There is no more magical tree than rowan. Its flowers have the magic number of five petals and sepals, and its blood-red berries bear the mystical pentogram. Witches make their wands from rowan twigs. In rural areas throughout Scotland, you still see rowan trees planted close to houses, because of the belief they will keep evil spirits away. The cross-beams of chimneys are called ‘rantrees’ in Scots because they were often made of rowan wood, to stop ghosts and ghoulies coming down the chimney. Twigs over doors, in stables and byres, tied into the tails and manes of livestock or attached to masts and halyards on boats, are all supposed to bring health and good fortune.

So cast a spell with a rowan stick, and cast your vote for it to be Scotland's national tree!